Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living From Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

Also by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

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PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright © 2020 by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

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Illustrations by Rebecca DeField. Used with permission.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Holiday, Ryan, author. | Hanselman, Stephen, author.

Title: Lives of the stoics : the art of living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius / Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, authors of The daily stoic.

Description: New York : Portfolio/Penguin, 2020. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020011797 (print) | LCCN 2020011798 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525541875 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525541882 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Stoics.

Classification: LCC B528 .H66 2020 (print) | LCC B528 (ebook) | DDC 188—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011797

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011798

Cover design: Sarah Brody

Cover illustrations: Rebecca DeField / © 2020 Ryan Holiday. All rights reserved.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Zeno the Prophet

Cleanthes the Apostle

Aristo the Challenger

Chrysippus the Fighter

Zeno the Maintainer

Diogenes the Diplomat

Antipater the Ethicist

Panaetius the Connector

Publius Rutilius Rufus the Last Honest Man

Posidonius the Genius

Diotimus the Vicious

Cicero the Fellow Traveler

Cato the Younger, Rome’s Iron Man

Porcia Cato the Iron Woman

Athenodorus Cananites the Kingmaker

Arius Didymus the Kingmaker II

Agrippinus the Different

Seneca the Striver

Cornutus the Common

Gaius Rubellius Plautus the Man Who Would Not Be King

Thrasea the Fearless

Helvidius Priscus the Senator

Musonius Rufus the Unbreakable

Epictetus the Free Man

Junius Rusticus the Dutiful

Marcus Aurelius the Philosopher King

Conclusion

Timeline of the Stoics and the Graeco-Roman World

Sources Consulted and Further Reading

Index of Stoics

INTRODUCTION

The only reason to study philosophy is to become a better person.

Anything else, as Nietzsche said, is merely a “critique of words by means of other words.”

No school of thought believed this—in the power of deeds over ideas—more than Stoicism, an ancient philosophy that dates to Greece in the third century BC.

It was Seneca, a Stoic philosopher of the Roman era, far removed from the academy, who would say quite bluntly that there was no other purpose to reading and study if not to live a happy life.

Yet this is not the role philosophy plays in the modern world. Today it’s about what smart people say, what big words they use, what paradoxes and riddles they can baffle us with.

No wonder we dismiss it as impractical. It is!

This book will be about a different and far more accessible type of wisdom, the kind that comes from people like Seneca, a man who served his country at the highest levels, endured exile and loss, struggled with ambition and personal flaws, and ultimately died tragically and heroically trying to make good on his theories. Unlike the so-called “pen-and-ink philosophers,” as the type was derisively known even two thousand years ago, the Stoics were most concerned with how one lived. The choices you made, the causes you served, the principles you adhered to in the face of adversity. They cared about what you did, not what you said.

Their philosophy, the one that we need today more than ever, was a philosophy not of ephemeral ideas but of action. Its four virtues are simple and straightforward: Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.